A recent study from the Centers for Disease Control shows a slight increase in births outside the hospital setting. It cites a 3.5 percent increase between 2003 and 2006. However, this is less than 1 percent of all births in the US, and far from the 44 percent in 1940.

Jody Brown is a Natural Childbirth Educator.

“What I try to teach is what we’ve lost over the years by moving birth from the home setting where women got to see other women give birth naturally," said the Syracuse resident. “When we moved out of that setting and into the hospital where birth was behind closed doors and women don’t get to see it, then it became this unknown thing.”

It is a passion she has had for 30 years, and she admits her views are a little out there.

“I think everybody should have a home birth and that is an extreme position,” she said. “You know there have to be a few on the radical left just to pull the radical right to the center, so that’s my justification for being on the extreme side, working on hauling those people in, just to the center, just to the moderate side.”